1. Field of the Invention
The disclosures herein generally relate to a treatment agent liquid application apparatus for an inkjet printer which is used for applying treatment agent liquid, such as a blur suppressing agent for suppressing an image blur of a inkjet printer which forms an image on a recording medium by ejecting ink droplets onto the recording medium, on a recording surface of a recording medium prior to forming an image on the recording surface.
2. Description of the Related Art
Image forming which uses an ink droplet ejection method is becoming increasingly popular these days because of its advantage that its colorization can be easily realized, in addition to its advantages of low noise and low running cost. But, when an image is formed on a recording medium which is a non-manufacturer-specified paper, the image forming using an ink droplet ejection method has problems related to image robustness such as water resistance, weather resistance, etc., in addition to initial image quality problems related to image blur, image concentration, color tone, image show-through, etc. Therefore, many ideas have been proposed to solve these problems.
As one of the solutions to the problems, there is a method for improving the image quality by, prior to having ink droplets ejected onto a recording medium paper, applying a treatment agent liquid that has a function to cause the ink to aggregate. An image forming apparatus in which a roller is used for applying the treatment agent liquid onto a recording medium as a means for applying the treatment agent liquid is described in, for example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 8-72227 (Patent Document 1).
Regarding the image forming apparatus described in Patent Document 1, it has installed a replenishing tank, which is filled with treatment agent liquid and in which an application roller for applying the treatment agent liquid onto a fed before-image-forming recording medium is installed. In the replenishing tank, a float which is made of material whose specific gravity is less than that of the treatment agent liquid is included. Furthermore, a remaining liquid indication window is provided on a side of the replenishing tank, which side is visible from outside the image forming apparatus and the remaining liquid indication window shows an indication “Full” for indicating that the replenishing tank is full and, below the indication “Full”, an indication “Add” for indicating that the replenishing tank should be replenished with the treatment agent liquid.
An operator, checking through the remaining liquid indication window the location of the float floating in the treatment agent liquid or the location of the liquid surface, is supposed to resupply the treatment agent liquid into the replenish tank when the location of the float or the liquid surface is near the indication “Add”.
In the image forming apparatus described in Patent Document 1, however, there is a problem that it is necessary for the operator to check through the remaining liquid indication window the remaining amount of the treatment agent liquid in the replenishing tank, which may be a burden for the operator.
[Patent Document 1] Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 8-72227